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The Huron Expositor, 1985-07-17, Page 2BLUE RiBBON AWARD 1995 1EHurx- _os�:tor on p SINCE 1860, SERVING THE COMMUNITY FIRST Incorporating Brus Is Post 10 Main Street 527-0240 Published to SEAFORTH, ONTARIO Every Wednesday morning HEATHER McILWRAITH, Editor The Expositor is brought, to you each week by the efforts of: Pat Armes, Bessie Broome, Marlene Charters, Joan Gulchetaar, Gary Halal, Anne Huff, Joanne Jewitt, Stephanie Levesque, Dianne McGrath, Lols McUWaln, Bob McMillan, Cathy Melody, Larry TRI and Steve Walters. Member Canadian Community Newspaper Assoc. Ontario Community Newspaper Association Ontario Press Council Commonwealth Press Union international Press institute Subscription rates: rare, Canada $18.75 a year (in advance) Outside Canada $55.00 a year (In advance) Single Copies - 50 cents each SEAFORTH, ONTARIO,. WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 1985 Second class mail registration Number 0696 Advertlaing is accepted on the condition that In the event of a typographical error the advertising *pace occupied by the erroneous Item, together with reasonable allowance for slgnalune, will not be charged f or but the balance of the advertisement will be gild for at the applicable rate. While every effort will bo made to Insure They are handled with are, the publishers cannot be responsible for the return of unaoliclted manu$orlpts or photos. Disappointing Minister Farmers like to consider themselves an independent lot. For that reason, their show of unity at Queen's Park last week was impressive. They showed up to let the Province's new Libera; administration know it wouldn't get away with the kind of mistreatment and lack of attention to farmers' problems the Tories had practised so well during their 42 years in power. The situation for farmers is getting really desperate. More are going bankrupt every day - 112 per week by one estimate - and the banks seem to be turning a deaf ear. If relief isn't forthcoming in short order, the provincial agricultural economy could be crippled permanently. None of this, of course, is news to farmers. They've known the magnitude of the problem for years. They helped elect people like Jack Riddell in the feint hope something would happen to ease their lot. Mr. Riddell, himself a farmer, seemed to have a good handle on the situation - at first. As agriculture critic for the past decade, he had always made it a point to look out for the farmers' best Interest in everything he did, When the Liberals took over and David Peterson made him minister of agriculture, there was an uplifting sense of impending good fortune in the agricultural community. All of this makes his performance at last week's rally all the more disappointing. When you're not promised anything and you don't get anything, you're upset but not surprised. But during the provincial election, the Liberals - with Mr. Riddell at the forefront - made a raft of promises, and even had people believing they'd make good on them. Now, little more than two weeks into their reign, they've begun to show signs of the same -legislative inertia which caused us to turf out the Tories. None of the major legislation proposed for agriculture has been introduced. What's worse, Jack Riddell, who had a reputation as a tough -talking, honest and forthright politician (if there is such an animal) appears to be falling into the "study -everything -to -death" mindset with which Ontarians are all too familiar. For example, he had promised interest relief for farmers as an immediate first step, yet he's saying now the nuts and bolts won't be worked out until August, with implementation slated for the end of the year. That will be too late for many farmers. At that rate, another 2,628 farmers will lose their land across Canada before there's any improvement. In Ontario, which represents close to 30 per cent of the country's farm income, that will mean 800 farmers or more will watch their life's work drain away, and that's not fair. If Mr. Riddell is stalling, he deserves to be scolded. If he's being reigned in by a cabinet more concerned with public image than with public assistance (remember, his comments during his government's first week were a major embarrassment to the Premier), then he should be prepared to exert some of his own influence, not to mention his common sense. Mr. Riddell should be the one to decide what to do. He's capable and bright, and (at least until last week) gave the impression he/understood farming. All he needs is the latitude to introduce some innovative programs, which the Premier, given his "commitment" to helping farmers, should let him have. — L.T. Band together They dreamt the impossible dream but together the people of Seaforth and area made it into a reality. Within weeks those people will gather to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of a facility that larger towns and communities told thein would never come off; a facility the people themselves funded, mainly through private donations. That facility is the Seaforth and District Community Centres. And now, approximately three years after that facility was structurally completed, the fundraising has ended. Pledges made by members of the participating communities have been, for the most part, honored and the amount needed to pay for the facility exceeded. Perhaps that is one of the advantages of living in a small town. When. there is something that needs to be done, no matter how magnanimous the task, it seems the inhabitants rally to the cause. Small town Canada certainly reflects a mentality that more Canadians should. Had more Canadians grown up in small towns, and had more federal and provincial leaders been able to incite the small town mentality into the thoughts and actions of the people, perhaps then, Canadians could make a run at reducing if not paying off the federal deficit. For surely if the town of Seaforth and the surrounding area can take and absorb totally a more than $500,000 project within a three-year time limit, then the total population of Canada should be able to absorb the national debt in a similar time span. The problem is, the inner workings of the government don't function like a small town. There, it seems, the edict is not .to work with your neighbor to better the community, but instead to work against your neighbor in an effort to outdo him or her. And that, takes us three steps backwards and only one forward in our effort to get ahead of the game. —H.M. GIVE THE 000 A BONE — Twenty -month-old Christopher out to her, Christopher, who lives In Dublin, seems to have his Jenkins combined two loves, dogs and baseball, Saturday mind, or his sights, on other matters. (Mcllwraith photo) afternoon. But while Sheba, seems intent on grabbing the bone held The injustices of summer W ell, the hot weather is finally here; a time of going to the beach and laying in the sand and soaking up the surf. foray not get to the beach at all this year. You see i haven't got a 1985 -type body. Not that i had a 1975 -type body or a 1965 -type body either, You look in my highschool yearbook and I'm easy to pick out on the school basketball team: I'm the ,one who looks like his uniform is still ori its coathanger. And since the advent of Frankie Avalon and Annette F'unicello and the beach party movies,. all decgnt people of either sex on a beach are supposed to be the color of a hand -rubbed oak table. I have just two variations of color: bed -sheet -white or raw -hamburger -red. I've learned to live with all this over the years but now, at a time of life when a once -concave stomach is becoming more and more convex, there comes along this new, state-of-the-art 1985 ideal man. I don't want to be seen on the same planet with him, let alone the same beach. I'm looking, as I write, at a picture from the movie Cocoon of Steve Guttenberg and Tahnee Welch (daughter of the voluptuous Raquel who still has a body that would make a teenagerenvious)and his chest bulges more BEHIND THE SCENES by Keith Roulston that hers does. lie isn't alone. The new breed of male movie and television stars all seem to be aliens from another planet, looking like no male human you've ever seen. Movies of the sixties in their new freedom suddenly started finding excuses to have the female stars go topless. Movies of the eighties have men that never seem to put their shirts on. And why not? If I'd spent all the time and money to pump iron and make health -club owners millionaires like these guys have, I . guess I'd want to make use of the investment too. It's sort of like owning a satellite dish and reading books all day for these guys to cover DJust the same it's enough to give the other 99.9 Der cent of the male population an inferiority complex. I guess we can feel now like women did in the fifties and sixties when Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor and Bridgette Bardot flaunted their impossible measurements of 38.22-38. The irony is while men in the eighties are supposed to bulge more, women are bulging less. The long, lean look has been in for some time for women but as females take over the Nautilus machines and get into body building, the look is leaner and leaner. The same exercises that make men more top-heavy, make women less so. The more they exercise, the more alike the male and female forms are. When you look at these body -beautiful contests you can still tell the women from the men: generally the women are shorter. There's one other thing: the women wear bikini tops while the men don't, but often it seems that the women have less to hide than the men. f'll be glad when this fad ends. Women who look like womenare more attractive to me. Men who look like men might get me back to the beach so i can turn my bed -sheet -white into raw -hamburger -red. 2,500 angry farmers At first it was disappointing. I didn't think that many farmers had come to the rally at Queen's Park, The Ontario Federation of Agriculture had done an excellent job of organizing it. I started to wonder what went wrong, then i noticed the line of marching farmers extended out to the street, down the street, around the corner, and down the next street. They were coming and coming with no end in sight. There were men, women and children. There were thousands of them. it was a huge, well-behaved group, but they had plenty of banners and signs to show their opinions. I felt proud to be a part of that group. W listened to the leaders of all the parties and we did not hesitate to express our opinions to them. Both opposition leader Miller and Premier David Peterson got some applause, but also earned their share of boos and catcalls from the audience. Jack Riddell, our local M . P. P.. and the new Minister of Agriculture, addressed us and we were stunned. He appeared to have gone over to the other side. 1 could see his hands shaking as he read his speech. I knew I too would have been shaking if I were in his shoes. That very day, a newspaper had quoted Mr. Riddell as announcing a new interest rate subsidy program for "bona fide" farmers. Now he was telling us that it would be, restricted to selected farmers, The provincial bipartite stabilization pro- gram he and previous Ministers of Agricul- ture had promised was to be delayed one more time. Mr. Riddell has decided to wait COUNTRY CORNER by Larry Dillon another year to see if the unfair subsidies, given to farmers in other provinces, would be stopped. The person beside me gasped in surprise and exclaimed Riddell had accomplished in only 11 days what it had taken Dennis, Timbrell two years to do. Both politicians had made promises about bipartite stabilization and then failed to act. Mr. Riddell was, at times. booed and shouted down by the fanners. He deserved it . He thanked us for coming, told us what a "high priority" we have with the provincial government and then proceeded to withdraw or water down the commitments he and his party had made previously We were disappointed. W e had made known our presence and had paid individual courtesy visits to every MPP who would listen to us. It was obvious our group of angry farmers was larger than the politicians had expected. Perhaps when they have time to consider how many of us there were and how strongly we felt, they will start to act. The attitude of the crowd seemed to be one of disappointment, but they were not ready to quit. Many people commented that if the provincial government continued to ignore us we would be back. The next time there will be many more farmers there. If 2,500 people weren't enough, we would get 10,000, The most enjoyable part of the day occurred as we marched off. W e walked along the sidewalk. When you have 2,500 people walking in a group 2 or 3 columns wide, it makes a very long line. W e marched around the buildings and across a street. 1 think the first few people in the group did have a green light when they started to walk across that street. That light changed, but no one stopped. As a matter of fact it changed color again and again and again for about 45 minutes. ft takes time for that many people to cross a street. The traffic lined up for blocks and had to wait. Angry drivers were leaning on their horns and shouting. Of course the farmers all smiled and waved back. One taxi driver, who seemed very annoyed, climbed out and shook his fist. He got back into his cab and started to drive into the group. He stopped abruptly when a police officer stepped in front of him. As the last of the line crossed that street, that taxi squealed away, zig zagging around the policeman who scrambled off the road. We watched the smoke and listened to the scream of the spinning tires. I felt better then. I knew that at least one person in Toronto was just as angry as we farmers were. A family reunion Summer is the time for family reunions. Other people - fighter pilots, newspapermen, Legionnaires, Women's institutes, Librar- ians - have them any old time. But in almost every weekly newspaper across the land, every week of our two-month summer, you can read that the Jones family, or the McIntosh family, or whatever, had a reunion, followed by a list of who was there, who came the farthest, who was the oldest, who was the youngest, who hosted the reunion, and everything down to what was on the menu. Not too etching to the average reader, but important to the family, so dutifully reported. After the reunion, on the way home, there's the usual obituary. "My God, wouldn't you think that Esther would stop, after having seven in 10 years." And, "Tina's got tui' ible fat. She's due for the big SUGAR AND SPICE by Bill Smiley slab if she don't stop eating. Seven pieces a pie after a feed a shanty man couldn't handle." Or, "Too bad Wilbur's got so fonda the stuff. They found him out behind the barn at 11 a.m., and hadda use a block 'n' tackle to get him up to the table." And so on. Well, i avoid family reunions like the plague, but one summer i was guilty of attending one. My reasons were three -fold: a sense of responsibility, love, and a chance to spend some time with my only and beloved daughter. The occasion was the 90th birthday of my unde, Ivan Thompson, patriarch of the clan, last of a family of eight, and a remarkable man. When you think of a 90 -year-old, you think of an old man, huddled in a shawl, toothless, senile or almost, sitting in a rocking chair, eating gruel. You don't think of a bright-eyed, lively, keen -minded fellow who could walk people Continued on nage A9'